


Inked

by DemonAngelSakina



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, Maybe Magic Maybe Mundane, Scars, Tattoos, lesbian couple, musing on tattoos, mute character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:28:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22826413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DemonAngelSakina/pseuds/DemonAngelSakina
Summary: "...There was a beauty in such things that could never be denied--like a scar, a tattoo could tell a story. A person's very identity, their entire lifestory even, could all be bared to the entire world with just lines of ink on skin. "...
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Female Character
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	Inked

Tattoos had always fascinated her...be it the striking artwork meant to be displayed with pride, the permanent markers of some youthful stupidity, or even the marks left behind by horrors so many would chose to deny--it didn't matter. There was just something about the look of ink just-beneath skin--fresh and bright, stark against flesh freshly flushed from the needle's assault...or faded with the edges and details blurred by time.  
There was a beauty in such things that could never be denied--like a scar, a tattoo could tell a story. A person's very identity, their entire lifestory even, could all be bared to the entire world with just lines of ink on skin.

But of all the tattoos that she had seen: those of her fellow officers nearly a lifetime ago, the ones decorating the flesh of both criminals and civilians...the tattoos that held her interest the most now, were the ones painting the deathly pale skin of the woman sleeping so soundly next to her.  
And perusing the mystery told by the marks on her lover's skin, was the perfect activity on nights like this.

Nights when the witching hour had only just slipped passed and the albino was sleeping peacefully, perhaps even dreamlessly, in their bed...  
Nights when the only light in their bedroom was coming from the neon sign of the no-tell hotel across the street, leaving their entire room was bathed in perpetual scarlet that seemed to blur the lines between nightmares and reality...  
Nights when the only thing keeping her from drinking too much whiskey and smoking too many cigarettes in another failed attempt at chasing away the demons in her head was the bitter knowledge that she was already out of both vices...  
Nights when she couldn't get the memory of betrayal and death to let her be--when all that she felt were the two clips-worth of bullets tearing through her flesh and when the copper-iron smell of her own blood and acrid stench of gunpowder just wouldn't leave her nose...

She brushed aside the soft, snow-white hair and trailed her fingertips along the symbol at the base of the albino's hairline--this was the oldest one...the edges and lines still sharp, but just beginning to blur along the corners. Once she'd questioned what the symbol here was--what did it mean, what was the story behind why it even needed to be there--and all that the other had stated was 'I completed my training' and left it at that.   
Not to say that she wasn't still curious...but the other woman never answered further and had gone right back to making their dinner that night, as if the question had never come up.

She stroked a few locks of hair aside--three 'horns', connected like the spokes of a wheel, delicately marked the woman's temple...it's twin on her other side. Behind the albino's ears was another symbol--at first glance, it had resembled an uppercase 'B', but--even now--she had no idea what it was supposed to mean. Was it the initial of a lover long gone? A friend lost?  
She had considered asking many times, but could only wonder if her pretty bird would answer her or would the other woman merely look at her as if she were crazy before going back to one of those dusty old books that she favored so much?

Another symbol decorated the side of the woman's neck--the ravenette had been told what that one was...something related to Norse mythos. Her green eyes narrowed in a scowl as she tried to remember the name...before shaking her head in disgust--of course her brain wouldn't work right now for that. But it was something to do with a weapon...a...a spear, right? Yes. She was certain that it referred to a spear weapon from Norse myth...she just couldn't remember the thing's name.

From there, she guided her gun-calloused fingers down over the next symbol, a pair of black and 'grey' shaded-in crescent moons flanking a similarly shaded-in circle--the 'Triple Goddess' if she remembered correctly--tattooed at the base of the woman's neck. She wondered why she had never asked about this one--maybe she should in the morning.  
Absentmindedly she trailed her tanned fingers down the thick, pale blue line--stopping a moment to note, once more, the little black lines that seemed to have no place yet still, purposefully broke up the line of blue--before continuing down the line tattooed down her lover's spine.

A large back piece followed--two serpents coiled around a staff topped by a pair of wings that stretched the width of the woman's bare back. The entire piece was beautifully shaded in black and 'grey', yet still a stark contrast against pale skin. When she had first seen it, she remembered stating that it looked like the 'doctor's symbol' only for the albino to bluntly correct her with 'Caduceus'.  
This was related to healing if she remembered right--it would make sense if the symbol was used by doctors, wouldn't it?--and leaned over to brush a soft kiss on each serpent's head as if in gratitude for the mark helping her pretty bird to stay healthy.

Fingers trailed over the odd horned circles that marked each shoulder blade, just above the lines for the 'Caduceus' wings--she was half certain that she'd asked about the simple black symbols...but she could not recall if she had ever been answered. She traced the thick lines of pale blue beneath the horned circles, back to the 'Caduceus' first, then back to the circle, and further down the side of the woman's arm, moving over the ornate line tattoo covering the rounded portion of the woman's shoulder--a similar mark in the same position on the opposite shoulder, but she had no idea what either one was and the albino would not tell her. She frowned a moment before stroking downwards over the duo of black knotwork bands encircling each bicep, then further over the trio of matching knotwork bands encircling each forearm--the pale blue line broken between the bands of knotwork by odd black, unmatching lines just above and below the other woman's elbows.  
She wondered about those little mismatched-seeming lines...but had never gotten around to asking.   
She would in the morning...but for now, she wanted to focus--she needed to focus.

She knew that there were so many tattoos on the albino's hands--circles with a knot-like pattern on each palm and on the back of each hand...thick, solid 'ring-like' tattoos around her fingers with bizarre, almost runic symbols both above and below each black ring. She had no idea what those 'runes'--if that is what they were--meant...but she was starting to consider that she would need to pester her lover relentlessly before the other woman would tell her.  
Maybe she could tell her what those weird picture-frame-like marks on the tops of each of her wrists meant in the morning--always in the morning--and finally answer what the runes meant...maybe.   
No...probably not.

From those, she moved back to the woman's torso--absentmindedly trailing her eyes over the ornate eagle's feather tattooed on the visible underside of the albino's pale forearm. She frowned--there was some symbolism to eagle's feathers, wasn't there? Did the symbolism apply to the wolf tattooed on the underside of the woman's forearm that was hidden beneath the pillow? Eagles and wolves...what did they mean to her pretty bird? Was the symbolism the reason for those two at least? Something normal out of all of the bizarre, almost otherworldly, tattoos covering the other woman's skin?   
Maybe...but then again, all of these had to have some reason or meaning even if they made no sense to the raven-haired woman.  
Even the coiled cobra with it's neck flared, that marked the skin just above the curve of the albino's hip.

The green-eyed woman leaned back a moment to sit and stare--she knew there was more...what looked like an odd black patch on the side of the pale woman's ribcage that was pressed into the bedding. She knew that tattoo was something else related to Norse mythology, but she couldn't recall what it was even if her life were dependent on it.

The bizarre looking 'sun ray'-framed circle with a five-pointed star in the center, tattooed directly over the woman's heart? She knew that tattoo intimately--she had kissed and stroked over it more than enough times in the heat of passion to know that it existed...even if, like with almost every other mark, she had no idea what it meant aside from some vague reference to 'protection'.  
If she thought about it, a lot of her lover's tattoos had some vague 'protection' meaning, even if she couldn't remember which ones nor why.

She knew about the bizarre, perfectly symmetrical tattoo covering the expanse of the woman's stomach--the first time she had seen it, she remembered stating that it looked like nothing but linework...only for the albino to correct her and say that the tattoo done in crisp, brown-colored lines was finished and nothing more would be done with it. The ravenette frowned--even as drunk as she was back then, she could remember the unease in the other woman's posture when this one tattoo had been brought up...she could remember just how tense her pretty bird had been and it made a sense of dread rise in her every time that she looked at the ornate lines of the piece.  
There was just something so innately wrong about it even though there was nothing aesthetically wrong--maybe it was all in how the albino had behaved towards it, but the dark-haired woman still chose to avoid contact with that tattoo alone if she could.

She knew that there were pale blue lines trailing down the back of the woman's legs to her feet--broken only by small black circles with three rabbits in a wheel-like pattern, on the outside of the woman's ankles.

A pale, tattooed hand came up and backhandedly smacked at the ravenette's side--narrowly missing the thick bandage taped over the curve of her hip, the healing wound the end result of some street thug with a knife from earlier in the night--and caused the woman to jerk her attention back to the albino's annoyed, pale silver eyes.

"Uh..."

The white-haired woman pushed herself to sit up--pale pink lips pressed together in an annoyed frown. She inclined her head so that her long, pale hair fell in sleep-tousled waves over her tattoo-marked shoulder--the bright red neon painting the woman's hair and deathly pale skin in an unearthly, bloody light that should be unsettling...yet only made her seem less like a piece of fragile porcelain. The green-eyed woman huffed out--rubbing her fingers over the close-cut sides of her hair. "Sorry, Kes. Didn't mean to wake ya."

The silver-eyed woman shook her head--seemingly in disbelief--before raising a pale hand and signing. _"Nightmares, Danni?"_

"Ya know me too well, pretty bird." Danniella huffed, turning her head to glare out the window at the sounds of gunfire...or was it a car backfiring? In this side of town, could be both or either at all hours. She gritted her teeth--one hand clenching tightly into a fist, blunt nails digging into her palms. "Fuckin' 'ell. If those shits don't shut it out there, I'm gonna shut it for 'em."

Kestrel rolled her eyes and reached over--grasping onto the black-haired woman's tanned hand that wasn't tucked in on itself in a white-knuckled fist, and caressing the old scars and callouses along the palm and fingers. She gave a small tug and pulled Danniella back down onto the bed--the raven-haired woman letting out an annoyed grunt as her back hit the old mattress. The white-haired woman laid down and pulled the other over to her, tucking the taller woman in close at her side and slowly stroking tattooed fingers over the bullet scars marring the other woman's flesh. Danniella narrowly smothered a weary laugh as the pale woman seemed to marvel over the former policewoman's scars just as much as she'd done with Kestrel's tattoos.

"...Tell me 'bout ya tattoos in the mornin'? Explain 'em all to me."

The pale woman stilled and, for a moment, Danniella believed that she would soon be alone in their bed...until one of those tattooed hands stroked lightly at her cheek--if the gentle touch was a promise to explain in the morning, she didn't know...but...she could ask again.  
It's not like the tattoos were going anywhere?  
If her scars weren't, neither were they.

**Author's Note:**

> Introspective piece between two female characters of mine.  
> Not sure if I'll do anything else with them, but I do have a tentative idea about a part two from Kestrel's perspective on Danniella's scars.  
> Would you all like to see that? Lemme know below.
> 
> Oh...and just to clarify this, cause I know it'll get asked: Kestrel isn't deaf. She is however mute and communicates with sign language.


End file.
